EU agrees to extend Spain-Portugal gas price cap until end-December

The European Union has agreed to extend a price cap set on natural gas used for power generation in Spain and Portugal until Dec. 31, Spanish Energy Minister Teresa Ribera said on Tuesday.

“This tool allows to keep protecting Spanish and Portuguese consumers until the end of the year,” Ribera told reporters on Tuesday morning in Brussels.

“The agreement enables the extension of this temporary mechanism that will cap the gas price at an average of 55 euros ($59.48) per megawatt-hour to 65 euros per megawatt-hour,” an Energy Ministry’s spokesperson said.

The so-called Iberian mechanism, in place in Spain and Portugal after the two countries reached a deal with the European Commission in the spring of 2022, is a joint scheme through which fossil fuel plants’ power costs are subsidised in a bid to bring down soaring electricity prices.

The governments pay the difference between the cap and the market price, which jumped following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Ribera said that as current gas prices are below the cap, the mechanism is not applied. “Were natural gas prices to rise again we would manage to contain electricity prices at a reasonable level that would not depend on the price of natural gas.”

The mechanism was set to expire on May 31.

Back in January, Ribera had said her government wanted to extend the price cap until the end of 2024 and set the cap at 45 or 50 euros per megawatt-hour.